The conservative cookie rebellion
By Wendy McElroy
web posted December 22, 2003
Want to buy a cookie? If you are a white male, that'll be $1; for
white females, 75 cents; blacks, 25 cents. The price structure is
the message.
Through Affirmative Action Bake Sales, conservative groups on
campuses across America are satirically and peacefully
spotlighting the injustice of AA programs that penalize or benefit
students based solely on gender and race. The cookie rebels are
being slammed by such a backlash that the Foundation for
Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) -- dreaded by many
university administrators -- just shot "an opening salvo" in the
rebels' defense.
Thor Halvorssen, CEO of FIRE, declared in a press release last
Friday: "Parody and political satire are not illegal in this country.
College administrators appear to be under the mistaken
impression that protesting affirmative action is not covered by the
First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Freedom of speech is
a right enjoyed equally and fully by both supporters and
opponents of affirmative action."
What are the AA bake sales, and why do they engender such
furor?
The sales are intended to spark discussion, not profits. They are
in the same genre as guerrilla theater -- an effective
counterculture tactic usually associated with the Left -- through
which societal assumptions are challenged by acting out
scenarios. To the amazed query, "Are you allowed to do this?"
one cookie rebel responded, "Admissions officers do it every
day." By shifting the context from university policy to baked
goods, the assumptions of affirmative action policies are not only
challenged as sexist and racist but also revealed as nonsense.
The cookie rebels are doing the one thing political correctness
cannot bear: revealing its absurdity and laughing in its face. They
are not merely speaking truth to power; they are chuckling at it.
To regain the moral indignation they prize so highly, the politically
correct must demonize the sale of baked goods. Thus, at Indiana
University one student filed an official complaint, saying that the
cookie sale would "create a climate of hostility against students
of color and women and can easily turn violent." (The fact that
those students were the ones given a price break didn't seem to
occur to the irony-starved critic who equated a buyer's discount
with a threat of violence.)
To its credit, Indiana University chose to protect the freedom of
speech for both sides of the affirmative action issue; it allowed
the bake sale to proceed. Other universities have made the
opposite choice.
The College Republicans at the University of Washington
sponsored an affirmative action bake sale on Oct. 7. CR
President Jason Chambers reported, "Approximately 150
students were gathered around our booth discussing the issue
[AA] by about 12:30 when our booth was attacked by leftist
students who disagreed with our stance on affirmative action."
The Leftists threw cookies to the ground, tore down the display
and physically attacked one vendor.
When the leftists began making threats, one of the cookie rebels
had called the police because he feared the discussion -- hitherto
civil -- might turn violent. Chambers explained, "Unfortunately,
rather than step in and arrest our attackers, the police stood by
while the University said we, the peaceful ones, had to shut
down because WE were creating an unsafe environment. ... Our
protests that the CRs were peacefully demonstrating while the
leftists got violent fell upon deaf ears."
The university allowed a handful of violent students to decide
which political views could or could not be expressed on
campus. This is called a "heckler's veto"; it is the last resort of
those who cannot win an argument through facts or reason.
Halvorssen commented, "Subsequently, in a frightening betrayal
of their fiduciary duty and their obligations to the Bill of Rights,
UW's Board of Regents released an open letter condemning the
College Republicans for being 'hurtful' while failing to mention the
counter-demonstrators' disruption of the College Republicans'
peaceful expression of their political views on a matter of
pressing public concern."
The University of Washington is not alone.
The University of California-Irvine shut down its bake sale as
discriminatory.
Northwestern University ordered students to cease selling
cookies or face the police.
Southern Methodist University closed the bake sale after 45
minutes because it created an "unsafe" environment.
William and Mary officials -- claiming to be "shocked and
appalled" -- also cut off the cookies.
Clearly, universities don't like the affirmative action bake sales.
One reason: The sales, like that at Indiana University, often
feature petitions "to ban the collection of racial data, particularly
in the admissions and hiring processes."
But most of all, the politically correct do not like being publicly
mocked and revealed as ridiculous.
FIRE is performing the valuable task of shining a bright light on
the viciousness with which the PC respond to mockery. Its
campaign "will include mailings to alumni, parents, university
donors, and state legislators."
Meanwhile the most effective thing the rest of us can do is to
keep laughing.
Boss Tweed -- that symbol of political corruption from 19th
century New York -- used to rail against cartoonists who
parodied him without pause. Tweed knew he could politically
survive anything except being the brunt of jokes. As with Tweed,
so too with AA. That's the way the cookie and policy crumble.
Wendy McElroy is the editor of ifeminists.com and a research
fellow for The Independent Institute in Oakland, Calif. She is the
author and editor of many books and articles, including the new
book, "Liberty for Women: Freedom and Feminism in the 21st
Century" (Ivan R. Dee/Independent Institute, 2002). She lives
with her husband in Canada.
Enter Stage Right -- http://www.enterstageright.com